Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Retro Dress - and How I Track My Pieces

Woo, first outfit of 2017 and...it's basically a repeat. I'm sayin' it - I didn't care. When I left the house this morning, I realized I had not been outside since Thursday, and had not talked to anyone other than L since Saturday. People! I have to deal with people! Give me coffee!

No thinking involved here, other than, "What belt can I hang my keys on?" I didn't really want to wear a belt, but I hate my lanyard, and I don't like those arm-spring things (I have too many keys/cards that I have to carry around).

Dress - A Dress Town Original, vintage 70s, thrifted; last seen here in October with - you guessed it - these same boots!

I was freezing in this on the way home! This is the warmest thing I own! I may have to resort to wearing my down duvet in public. You've been warned!

The stuff:

Comfy boots.

Bigass bling:

"I think you need a bigger belt" - L, being a smarta**.

Belt - Fendi, thrifted

Necklace - Nygard, consignment

Earrings - local

So. Ever wondered how I remember when I last wore something or was able to so easily see how many times I've worn an item? So does Reader Laurie!

I am curious how you catalog your outfits so you know not only when you last wore a piece but also how many times (for price per wear). Part of me thinks you once explained this before, so I'll go check your links at the top of your site.

Well, I don't actually have this documented anywhere (I should do another clean-up of those tabs...she said, never intending to do it), and I've kind of just figured out a process over the years that works for me.

I do remember in my first posts (back in 2008) that I thought, "I will want to be able to find these clothes again on this blog at some point," so I've been noting brands (and method of purchase: consignment, thrift, vintage fair, or nothing, which means I bought it new) since the beginning. It's like I planned it!Last worn: Here's what I do to find the last time I wore something:

I have a separate tab open (I blog on a desktop; no laptop/tablet/iPhone, etc.) so that I can look at my blog (View Blog) and switch back and forth between the post I'm writing and the main page.

I use the search bar in the upper left corner to type in the most unusual part of a garment's name. It's a pain in the you-know-what to look up "Monaco" because I buy a lot of Club Monaco stuff, but it's easy to look up "Fendi" because I only have one piece. Don't even get me started on "feet" or "style" or "fashion" or "vintage" - those are practically useless for me to search on. Don't ever name your clothing company something boring.

The search results come back sorted by relevance (how prominent that word is in a post), but I want to use the "sort by date" (which sorts most recent posts at the top) so I click that and bam! I've sorted by date.

I scroll through my entries quickly (rrr rrr rrr goes the mouse wheel!) until I find the item, note what month/year it was and then copy the hyperlink over to my entry (using the "Link" button to hide the URL). This sometimes takes a long time.

This is what it looked look for me to find the most recent wearing of my Clark's boots. Some items are easy to find, but some...take a lot more patience.

How many times it's been worn: When I want to see how many times I've worn an item, I just click back on that "last seen here" or "last worn here" in a published post, and open those in new tabs again and again until I've found every wear, and count how many times I've worn the item. I miss some wears (I'm sure) because of mis-spelling, mis-labeling (I get Jones New York, Ralph Lauren and Ann Taylor mixed up a lot), or I just forgot to write the brand down.

Cost per wear: If I listed the price of the item when I bought it (I didn't post my purchases right away in the early days of my blog and didn't always include the price, so sometimes it's harder to determine older things), then I just divide the price by the number of times I've worn it to get the cost-per-wear. This often takes a while because I get caught up reading the posts and remembering where I was at that point of my life - down the rabbit hole I go! So I don't do it for every clothing item simply due to the huge amount of time involved - only when I feel like it and have a longer time to spend blogging.

And that's it! Make sense? It works for me! I've never been inclined to do spreadsheets - although I did do them for my 2012-ish "30 for 30 for 12" year-long challenge because it helped me count how many times I'd worn each item without having to search them all. Gads, where did I ever get the energy to do that?

Thank you again so much for asking, Laurie! For any other readers: I'm happy to answer any "technical" posts or other posts about my blog, my blogging habits or anything else that I feel like answering (no heavy personal stuff, of course). Just drop me a comment, or an email (it's in my profile).

20 comments:

Hi! It's quite funny how different we think about cold: this week in Finland where I live, there will be around -17c and I'm happy to finally get to wear every warm winterpiece I own. Of course we have four clearly different season so I have prepared for colds.

It would be nice to know your shopping tips; how you spot the garment you want to look closer, what are things you pay attencion and finally what criterion have to be filled that you buy the item. And maybe some tips how to spot great value piece.

It's interesting to read how you keep track Sheila! I do the same when looking back to when I last wore things. I've considered counting them up to keep a tally of each time I wear something but as you mentioned it's pretty time intensive and I don't have a lot of that at the moment.

Hope your first day back at work after the break went well - it does sounds terribly cold, I don't think Brisbane has ever dropped below freezing!

I love this outfit and that teeny belt. Heh. Good idea to hang your keys from there. And yeah, this cold, go away now. Annoying! But you are dressed for keeping the cheer. I adore that vintage dress. Your method of keeping track is very efficient. I couldn't do it because I am such a slacker at putting key identifiers in my posts. Oh well - I love that you do it!

Love the dress and the belt with the massive buckle. That tracking thing looks really interesting, so I'm going to have to read it properly later, as I guess I will need it at some point. Thanks for sharing. xxx

I love this outfit, Sheila, you can wear it as often as you like! It's colourful and flattering and looks great on you and paired with the long Clarks boots is lovely. The belt also blends in beautifully.

I don't really track my clothes that well - the other day I spent ages searching for an item I knew I had worn before but just couldn't find it! I think being able to use the 'tagging' facility is something I need to learn fast! Do you lknow what I mean by tagging - Goody, for example has it on one of the side bars...

Yes, I used to use the tags a lot, but they are limited: you can only put so many on a post, and because I'll multiple things by the same brand, I forgot what I'd named the garment. I only use them now for a few things.

I so love that dress on you, and the boots go perfectly with it. We have had a pretty mild winter so far, which is the opposite of what was predicted, but we have had a few days of -20 temperatures and I've worn my warmest coat and hat!

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